Arsenal v Man Utd (H) Sat 2nd Dec 17:30 (live on BT)

[flash gunner]

Entertaining game if youre a neutral, unfortunately im not a neutral and i thought it was shit. our defending was sunday league at best and highly embarrassing.

What does Bould make of this? Id love to know his real thoughts

[DB10GOONER]

Manure were gifted those two goals 100%. Bad defending is what led to them, not manure pressing or being anything but lucky initially. Both Mustafi and Kos had opportunities to do the simple defensive thing and didn't - that has nothing to do with manure and everything to do with our lack of a decent defensive system and poor coaching and discipline leading to poor decision making.

A good team has defenders that can play a bit of football when required. Wenger likes his defenders to be footballers that can do a little bit of defending as a last resort - and that will always cost us. Style over substance does not win PL titles and never will.

It was a weird game. We were the better team overall and if they'd had any other keeper (or even deGea on a different day) we would have won 6-3.... but the worrying stat there is the 3. We always look like conceding at any given moment in every game because we have no defensive discipline and our CH's all think they are midfield creators.

Having said we were the better team, manure totally deserved the victory because they were clinical in the finish whereas we were wasteful. You can have all the 75% posession, 35 shots blah blah stats you like - the only stat that counts is the final score.

[Redarmy]

Trawling through Twitter, which sometimes is the same as self harming, and I see Arsenal fans so proud of their team for the effort ,for the way they tore into United and as usual bemoaning bad luck.
The official supporters club account says it was the timing of the goals that dictated the game. I am glad they explained that to me. Because I would never have known that gifting two early goals to a well structured team could possibly dictate the game. I was thinking that two stupid and costly errors by two average central defenders with notions of grandeur were partly responsible for the bad start.
My favourite tweet was from a serial Wenger disciple who said "once we had an inferiority complex against United, yesterday proved that isn't the case anymore "...(paraphrasing there).

We knew how Man Utd would play......we were exposed to the counter attack, (although agreed both goals were of our own making due to Man utd Simply harassing our defenders and them in turn over playing instead of just clearing) we still have no one who can sit in front of the defence and tackle???

This issue has never been addressed by Wenger

Xaha, Coquelin and Eleneny do not know how to tackle....no discipline in the team.....defensively look like they have never been coached....
This is not another gripe but really think this lays at Wengers door again....

Strangely enough was a time when i would be sick about this, now not really bothered....I won't go while Wenger is there....and as we all know they will never win the title again under him.

totally agree with below comments....

“What did United want? Space to run into on the counterattack. Arsenal gave Antonio Valencia that for his goal.

“With three at the back, you get dragged around, and space opens up when the full backs push forward.

“I do not believe the system suits Shkodran Mustafi, Laurent Koscielny and Nacho Monreal.

Wenger implements a system with no coaching or thought as to how it will actually be played out....Yes Wenger negligent again...but WTF no one cares right, he's never judged????

[Allgunsblazin]

Shots on Goal Arsenal 16, 1 goal
Man Utd 4 shots, 3 goals..

Work that out, and we had 75% of the ball....

[cardinal2011]

Did anyone hear about 9 people arrested for ticket touting before the game. Sky Sports are also saying hundreds of memberships gave also been cancelled for misuse

I hope this is not the memberships of people lending a membership to a mate like all do!!

[Nos89]

the difference today is simple,they have De Gea and we have Pete the Plank,a decent keeper for us and we win that game

Did you watch the game?

Cech made a brilliant save to stop us going further behind and wasn't at fault for any of the goals. I don't think he's good enough for us but your analysis is nonsense.
With all of his teammates in front of him Kos passed straight to an opponent for the first goal and couldn't even stay goalside of his man for the second. Mustafi had a couple of simple passes he could have made but fell over his Beckenbauer-delusion instead.
How was any of that Cech's fault?

Agree with this, our centerbacks lost us this game, more that any other part of the team.

That picture sums up our defending and why I continually point out that Monreal shouldn't be starting in the back 3. Luiz at the chavs has been dropped for committing the same defensive error. Will we see proper CB playing next week?

[OneBardGooner]

Monreal was originally bought as a Left Mid-fielder - at which I think he would be very good, but wenker being the inept cuntslop he is keeps playing him in the back-line...He is neither big nor quick enough to be in the last line of our defence, but as a player I like him.

[robbo10]

We should start a game thread sweepstake for the minute the schoolboy error comes that inevitably leads to a goal,because as sure as night follows day you know its coming,

[Jumpers For Goalposts]

Zero progress for yet another season, 3 matches played against established/competing top 4 sides and they have yielded no points and a 2-10 deficit in goals.... catalyst for change my hole

A 2-10 deficit???? Now where have we heard that before??

[Jumpers For Goalposts]

Much as i hate to praise other teams players, the difference between Matic and our holding players was utterly apparant yesterday, how many times did he block shots, tackle players or generally make a nuisance of himself in their box, on the other hand where were Ramsey and Xhaka every time they got to our end of the pitch......

Kos and Mustafi were woeful again yesterday and much as some of you want to throw all the blame at Wenger they are professional footballers earning a lot of money and have to take the blame for things when they are on the pitch and not doing a defenders job correctly

Why mate ???? That's one of the things I've never understood - if other players are smarter or harder working or just better then why not say so? It's madness to pretend that we're holding all the aces.

With the utter shite that Wenger has inflicted on us this last 10 years or so, it's even more important to be realistic

[General]

the difference today is simple,they have De Gea and we have Pete the Plank,a decent keeper for us and we win that game

Did you watch the game?

Cech made a brilliant save to stop us going further behind and wasn't at fault for any of the goals. I don't think he's good enough for us but your analysis is nonsense.
With all of his teammates in front of him Kos passed straight to an opponent for the first goal and couldn't even stay goalside of his man for the second. Mustafi had a couple of simple passes he could have made but fell over his Beckenbauer-delusion instead.
How was any of that Cech's fault?

Agree with this, our centerbacks lost us this game, more that any other part of the team.

That picture sums up our defending and why I continually point out that Monreal shouldn't be starting in the back 3. Luiz at the chavs has been dropped for committing the same defensive error. Will we see proper CB playing next week?

It doesn't matter who we play there, the problem is not individual, It's collective and exacerbated by the lack of proper drilling.

[General]

Did anyone hear about 9 people arrested for ticket touting before the game. Sky Sports are also saying hundreds of memberships gave also been cancelled for misuse

I hope this is not the memberships of people lending a membership to a mate like all do!!

I'm not surprised. The game wasn't sold out and there were bound to be many tickets floating around.

[General]

Much as i hate to praise other teams players, the difference between Matic and our holding players was utterly apparant yesterday, how many times did he block shots, tackle players or generally make a nuisance of himself in their box, on the other hand where were Ramsey and Xhaka every time they got to our end of the pitch......

Kos and Mustafi were woeful again yesterday and much as some of you want to throw all the blame at Wenger they are professional footballers earning a lot of money and have to take the blame for things when they are on the pitch and not doing a defenders job correctly

Mustafi and Kos didn't deliberately set out to underperform, although I think the former walked early because of a bruised ego. We've turned over a huge number of defenders yet the issues remain the same. Once we lose the ball against a decent side, our defenders become sitting ducks whiles the shape gets pulled all over the place.
Wenger has neglected/disregarded off the ball work for years because of his unhealthy infatuation with dominating the ball. It's footballing genocide. Wenger goes, that side of our game immediately improves and our defenders would no longer look like clowns.

[LaughingGooner]

Shocking defending. Really was poor for a schoolboy team, let alone international level defenders.
Defenders badly let us down. Could not believe what I was watching.
We played pretty well, though only scoring once when we had 33 attempts on goal is pretty piss poor.

Trying to be positive - we did outclass them for long periods - but they know how to win games when second best.

Decent atmosphere again and it was great to hear such noise when we were 2-0 down.

Players simply have to turn up now on Sunday. No excuses.

[Redarmy]

Much as i hate to praise other teams players, the difference between Matic and our holding players was utterly apparant yesterday, how many times did he block shots, tackle players or generally make a nuisance of himself in their box, on the other hand where were Ramsey and Xhaka every time they got to our end of the pitch......

Kos and Mustafi were woeful again yesterday and much as some of you want to throw all the blame at Wenger they are professional footballers earning a lot of money and have to take the blame for things when they are on the pitch and not doing a defenders job correctly

Why mate ???? That's one of the things I've never understood - if other players are smarter or harder working or just better then why not say so? It's madness to pretend that we're holding all the aces.

With the utter shite that Wenger has inflicted on us this last 10 years or so, it's even more important to be realistic

Matic was up for sale and Wenger did not go for him......happy with what we have already